


A Little Bit Of Paint

by rekabel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Shot, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 09:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14639315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekabel/pseuds/rekabel
Summary: Jisung does a lot without thinking, like letting his best friend paint his nails, or pushing an older boy, or doing anything possible to make Chenle smile





	A Little Bit Of Paint

Jisung knows it’s rude to stare, and he’s definitely been looking too long. Jisung also knows he probably shouldn’t say anything, but he blurts out anyway

“Are your nails painted?”

It’s a bit of a stupid question really. There is very clearly royal blue nail polish on his best friend’s fingers.

Chenle beams at him and stretches his hands across the cafeteria table so Jisung could see his nails better

“I did them myself! Aren’t they nice?”

Jisung is first and foremost, confused. Chenle is a sixteen year old boy, and sixteen year old boys don’t wear nail polish, especially not to high school. Jisung is secondly embarrassed, because yes, they do look nice. In fact, Jisung thinks the dark colour of the nail polish looks _great_ against the pale skin of Chenle’s hands

“But… People are going to make fun of you”

Jisung always had a habit of speaking before thinking

Chenle brings his hands towards himself and looks down at his painted nails

“Sure” he shrugs his shoulders “But I don’t mind” He smiles his blinding smile at Jisung again and continues eating his lunch like nothing has happened.

It’s not as if Jisung really cared about the fact that Chenle has painted his nails, Jisung just can’t stop thinking of the scary seniors catching wind of this and saying something to hurt his best friend.

Unfortunately, Chenle is a year older than Jisung, so if anyone says something during Chenle’s classes, Jisung doesn’t hear about it.

 

* * *

 

The next time it gets brought up is at Chenle’s house. They’re both hunched over Chenle’s desk working on homework, until Jisung gets distracted by the fluttering blue in his peripheral and finds himself looking at Chenle’s hands again. He thinks Chenle is going to be upset when he catches Jisung, but he isn’t, instead he looks almost excited

“I can do yours if you want” he offers

Jisung is stunned into silence. It’s the way Chenle looks at him with wide, hopeful eyes that Jisung finds himself wordlessly nodding. He knows he’s made the right choice when Chenle smiles brightly and runs out of the room. He comes back a few moments later with a small basket in his hands.

“Here, you can pick a colour!” He announces, laying the basket of various nail polish bottles in front of Jisung

He knows it’s quite the oxymoron when he finds himself searching for a _manly_ colour of nail polish. He reaches and picks out a bottle of black nail polish

“Of course you’d pick black” Chenle giggles

Jisung becomes too embarrassed to answer and feels the heat rising to his cheeks

Chenle sits beside him and pulls Jisung’s right hand off his lap and onto the desk. Wordlessly, he starts to drag the small brush across the fingernails on Jisung’s hand. It’s messy. Chenle isn’t exactly well versed in painting nails, let alone _other_ people’s nails. Jisung’s ears are burning when Chenle reaches for his other hand to bring up.

Chenle finishes both hands with a small exclamation and a giggle.

“Now, you can’t move your hands until it dries” he instructs, screwing the cap back onto the bottle.

Jisung does as he’s told and keeps both hands flat on the desktop as Chenle returns the basket. A panic starts rising in his stomach at the thought of having to explain this to his parents when he gets home, but the sheer joy on Chenle’s face when he comes back into the room is enough to fill his stomach with a much brighter feeling

Chenle takes his seat again and lays his hands on the desktop too just in front of Jisung’s hands, so their fingertips are almost touching

“Look! We match” The smile Jisung gets is so wide, and bright and happy that Jisung feels his breath being taken away. It sometimes amazed him how smiley and happy Chenle always was, and he couldn’t deny the best feeling he’s ever felt was being the reason Chenle could smile so brightly

 

* * *

 

His mother frowns at him when she picks him up. Jisung only hides his face in the collar of his jacket and shoves his hands in his pockets. The ride home is silent.

When he gets home, he runs to his room before his father can catch sight of him. He immediately opens his laptop with the intention of finding a way to get the black off his fingers, but his fingers hesitate over the keys. He stares at his hands and thinks of the way Chenle would look at him when he showed up to school the next day with every trace of the nail polish wiped away. He imagined the smile fading from Chenle’s face when he sat across the table from him at lunch. He could hear the faint disappointment and sadness in his voice when he assured Jisung it was okay. He saw again, the indescribable joy on his best friends face when he laid his hands across from Jisung’s.

His mother shouted for him to come to supper. Jisung jumped in surprise and shut his laptop hastily, running out of his room.

His father stopped short on whatever he was saying when he finally caught sight of the colour on Jisung’s nails. Jisung only looked down at his plate and continued eating like he didn’t notice.

“Jisungie-“ his father started

But Jisung quickly shoved the last spoonfuls of rice into his mouth and stood up from the table, taking his dishes with him. He didn’t stick around to hear what his father was going to say

 

* * *

 

It was totally worth it Jisung decided. The disappointed looks from his parents, the awkward supper, it was all worth it when Chenle sat across from him at lunch and saw the nail polish coated nails wrapped around the sandwich Jisung was taking a bite out of. Everything seemed worth it when Chenle smiled his wonderful, toothy smile all because of Jisung.

Jisung knows it’s rude to stare, but he loses track of what Chenle is talking about and instead just looks at the older boy talking animatedly. He can’t help but smile softly when Chenle starts giggling about something that Jisung didn’t quite catch.

 

* * *

 

In all honesty, Jisung saw it coming. When the older boy pushed Chenle into the locker by his shoulders, making the upperclassmen behind him snicker, Jisung wasn’t as shocked as he should’ve been. It had been days now, word of Chenle’s odd affliction with nail polish had made its way the older students.

Chenle was clearly shaken as his back hit the metal lockers hard. Tears brimmed in his eyes and his smile was long gone. Jisung felt angry. Jisung looked at the older students laughing, and felt rage. In usual Jisung fashion, he acted before he thought. He dropped his book bag to the ground and put all his strength into pushing the boy away from Chenle.

Luckily, the upperclassmen seemed to have forgotten about Jisung, and the sudden, unexpected push knocked the bully off balance. Jisung may have been years younger, but he was tall for his age, and he had managed to build some sort of muscle mass over the years he spent dancing. Although he really wanted to knock the guy in his teeth for daring to touch his best friend, Jisung knew his parents would be far more disappointed over a suspension than they were over his nail polish. So instead, Jisung shouted

“Just leave him alone!”

The bully laughed and moved to stand close to Jisung. A shout of a teacher somewhere behind Jisung stopped anything from progressing, and the bully scoffed in Jisung’s face as his friends scrambled away frantically

Chenle threw his arms around Jisung’s neck and hugged him tightly

“You’re my hero Jisung” Chenle whispered into Jisung’s shoulder

Jisung was too stunned to move or speak

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day Chenle wouldn’t stop talking about the encounter with the bully. Even when they walked through the school gates and started their walk home, Chenle was basically skipping down the street as he recalled the events once again

“I’m serious Jisung! You should’ve seen his face, he was so shocked. You were really brave” Chenle turns back and latches onto Jisung’s arm.

“I-I think you’re just exaggerating Chenle” Jisung knows his face must be a very obvious shade of pink

“You’re seriously my hero” Chenle says for the nth time that day, as he nuzzles his cheek into Jisung’s shoulder

At Chenle’s house, Jisung sits at his desk and starts on his homework. Chenle on the other hand is sitting on his bed with a pile of cotton pads and wiping his nails with some liquid he’s squeezed onto the pads. After a while Chenle hops off the bed and walks out of the room without a word. Jisung recognizes the basket in his hands when he comes back.

He sits next to Jisung again and pulls out a bottle of bright yellow nail polish from the basket. Jisung notices then that the blue he was previously wearing is completely gone. Something warm bubbles inside of Jisung when he realizes that even after the events of today, Chenle is going to paint his nails still.

“Do you think I could try?” He asks softly

Chenle looks at him eyes wide in shock. The expression quickly disappears and like usual, Chenle is smiling at him

“Of course!”

So instead of homework, Chenle and Jisung spend their time teaching Jisung how to use nail polish and using Chenle as practice. It takes him multiple times to get the hang of it, and there’s yellow all over the sides of Chenle’s fingers, and even a decent amount on Jisung’s fingers, but each nail is covered too, so Jisung counts it as a success.

When Jisung finishes the last nail, he looks up at his best friend

“Is it alright?” he asks cautiously

Chenle doesn’t answer right away. He looks at Jisung for long enough that Jisung can feel himself blush, before Chenle leans out of his chair and presses a kiss to Jisung’s cheek

“It’s perfect”

Jisung is too stunned to speak, but the smile on Chenle’s face sends him into a blushing mess with warm, tingly feelings on his cheek, and in his stomach


End file.
